


thistle-tongued

by khlassique



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, regency au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27804679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khlassique/pseuds/khlassique
Summary: “Sansa, I say again: I have crossed the winter sea for you. Please do not deny me or yourself.”
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Sansa Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	thistle-tongued

“One would think you quite mad, should you do it.” Margaery delivered this comment without ever looking up from her embroidery, a large hoop over her lap. Roses. More roses. Sansa was half sick to death of them by now, her own fingers stilled just a moment over the tight stitches of a half-formed thistle. Her needle pierced the handkerchief without hesitation, beginning the stitch again.

“I wouldn’t really do it. Run away, I mean.” But would she, in order to see her mother again? Her brother? Scotland was not so far away, if one looked on the map, yet no one was traveling there any more. The Tyrells had never given reason, but she’d heard the servants whispering, Shae’s wonderful voice which had later soothed her snapping at the others to _have manners_. Robb was so fierce to not bow to the king in London, but could he not be so brave as to refuse to negotiate until she was home? One London season, she had begged her father. Just one. This was the price.

Arya would have run away. Arya would have stolen a stable boy’s breeches and a pistol and been gone before morning, quick as a rabbit. Arya was gone already, anyways. 

Arya had been quite mad, Sansa had once thought, unable to handle a younger sister who’d never cared that her gloves were ruined before the day was through. Madness was something a woman could never come back from, once all saw her so. Madness meant a place far away, alone, under lock and key, nowhere else to go forever.

_Quite like now_ , Sansa thought. Even Highgarden Manor, a day’s ride, would be a respite. But no, no, here she sat in the family residence at Buckingham. Joffrey and his mother simply enjoyed her company too much to let her leave, of course. A most charming dinner companion, and a wonderful dancer. A wonderful wife for the queen’s dwarf brother to balance out the ruination his sister said he brought to the blood line. Never once had Lady Lannister misstepped in the ballroom.

The walls pushed in on her, the needle catching the sunlight in a way that made her pause again, stare at it, the way the light caught on so narrow a thing. For some reason this consumed her, the light. Her skin felt too tight, too much, the absence of tears making her eyes hot.

“I must get some air,” she said, suddenly, hoping she didn’t sound crazed. _No madness here, ever, I am not mad, I am a Stark, I simply want to be home where in winter we have no light_.

So she went to the gardens, spilling over with the richness of summer blooms, which were so blessedly empty in the heat, and sat under the shadow of an old oak left undisturbed since Alyssa Velaryon had planted it, it had been said. A sign Robert Baratheon, Gods Save Him, had been meant to usurp the wicked Aerys Targaryen even before the building of the palace itself. Arya had scoffed back in their chambers that night, asked if Joffrey could be truly descended from so great a woman, or if the bloodline had been tainted over the years. Sansa had defended the prince, and their fight had become so heated the maids had to fetch their father.

Sansa closed her eyes, pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to summon tears which would not come. Shae stood away from her, allowing the rarity of a sense of privacy.

Not that it lasted for long, as the distinctive noise of Hessians on gravel grew louder; Sansa‘s jaw tightened. Now that she had been set aside, Joffrey had ignored her, mostly, but she had also avoided his solitary company. So she had steeled herself by the time the boots themselves came into view, on the legs of someone who was notably not her prior fiancé, but his esteemed uncle. 

The Marquess of Westerland, hero of the Peninsula, loser of the Battle of the Whispering Wood which had bordered ancient Hadrian’s Wall, heir to the Dukedom of Casterly Rock, The Most Honorable Jaime Lannister, who had arrived in the dead of night at the palace gates still possessing his famed charm but not his sword hand just three months ago, stopped walking when he saw her. Sansa did not look up. His boots had been freshly cleaned– _an excellent valet_ , she thought absently, _to get them to mirror shine_ – and were in front of her. The toes brushed the edges of her skirts. The bootshine would leave a wretched stain. She’d never liked this dress anyways, a castoff from Margaery (“In the spirit of sisterhood,” the woman had said). A print of roses tangling with ivy filled her vision, along with the boots and green grass. She just now noticed the size of the rose’s thorns, another sign. As if she could miss any ever again. 

“Lady Stark– or, should I say, Lady Lannister,” he said, rather gravely, and she looked up– it would be rude to not meet his eye– noticing, startled, how close his bow had brought his face. Freckles scattered golden and faint over his nose, the edges of his green eyes faintly creased. These things only made him more handsome, as the queen had grown more beautiful, and it was all such a lie. _Good thing he’s maimed and marred, then._ Sansa blinked, remembering her courtesies. 

“Lord Westerland.”

He did not wear his military uniform, but she knew he looked magnificent in it. He’d worn it when the royal party had come to Winterfell that long time ago. 

“Do you often enjoy the gardens, Lady Lannister? Or may I call you Sansa, now that you are my sister?”

“They are very quiet. And call me what you wish.” A bee hovered near her ear, buzzing. Before she could move, his gloved hand came to brush it away. Perhaps he did it absentmindedly. 

She flinched. She didn’t want to, but she did, cheek turning from the soft leather on his thumb. The glove smelled of horses, and everyone knew that underneath was a hand made of solid gold, commissioned by his father the Duke of Casterly Rock. The Marquess was known as an avid equestrian, but he could not have just come from the stables, with the state of his boots. 

He looked at her, and brought his hand back to his side. His lips pressed together, the ends drawn down, and she swallowed under the pressure of that expression. _Thunderous_ , perhaps it could be so described. At her?

No. His hand remained at his side, no muscles tensing to strike. She was familiar enough with the sight to recognize a violent gesture before it started. 

“My nephew doesn’t enjoy these gardens so much. Prefers to be hunting if he’s outdoors.” 

“If he will not enjoy them, I shall, then. My maid likes to sketch the blooms as well,” Sansa nodded to Shae, whose pencil had not met paper since this exchange had started. “Lady Tyrell has said she’ll plant more roses, after the wedding. Perhaps it will enjoy the king’s blessing once again.”

“She wishes to make this into Highgarden, then.”

“Perhaps she misses home.” At this he looked at her again, instead of at the flowers around him, the corner of his mouth pressing upward enough to let her know she’d said too much. An admission of homesickness, and he found it amusing. She’d thought she’d lost the ability to blush, but she did so now. Her brother had kept him captive, her brother who was now king in his own right, her brother who she prayed for most of all. 

“Perhaps.” He nodded at her, eyes turning once again serious, and made his goodbyes. 

There was a ball that night; he did not attend. 

Joffrey’s personal guard was all slowly replaced. One would not have known if they had not been beaten by them; Sansa noticed. She danced at balls, smiling at all the men who asked to take a turn with her, smiling at Lady Tyrell simpering over the King, smiling until none could see her save Shae. Even then, she kept something tucked inside, an expression only for herself.

It was several weeks before Sansa saw Lord Westerland again, unusual given her place in court. One would think the King’s uncle would be attending at least the exclusive events during the Season. Odd, how the Season kept going, though there were wars on two fronts now. Her brother in Scotland, and self-styled Empress Danaerys of France; rumors said she was fit to escape the island she’d been forced to retreat to. Yet the nobility danced and went hawking, and never wondered at how the food and wine kept appearing despite the papers increasing space given over to reports of how taxing a winter it had been on the harvests. Sansa read the papers, and frowned. She’d once never given similar thought to the plight of those not blessed with noble blood, but then the riots had happened while she’d been in the streets. A rare outing, and she’d almost died. It was enough to make her pay attention.

Then on the occasion of the wedding of Lady Margaery Tyrell to King Joffrey, and before the last glorious presentation of cakes, there was dancing. Sansa sat, staring at the pattern on the china, the roses and lions rampant, hoping her lord husband or anyone else did not ask her to dance. She did not wish to be touched today.

It was not her husband but his brother who invited her onto the floor for a waltz, civility personified in his red coat. She could not refuse.

“You do me a great honor, my Lord,” Sansa said, the small smile she’d perfected masking any other emotion beneath the surface. 

He smiled as well, and Sansa recognized it as false as her own. Well. “We’re kin, Sansa. Do call me Jaime. I will allow you that liberty.”

“That _liberty_?” The words came out before she could stop them, heavy with sarcasm. Oh yes, such liberty she had. Caged Lady Lannister, brought out to sing and preen for her captors. His left hand grasped her right a fraction tighter, his golden hand on her back pressed a bit firmer, as he took her around a dizzying corner so quickly all she saw was the swirl of every colored gown around them.

In the hands of a less practiced lead, the corner could have ended in disaster. Lord Westerland– Jaime– did not let her fall. When she looked back into his eyes, they were regarding her as they had in the garden the few weeks past. Like she was a mystery, wondrous in its intrigue. 

Sansa never discovered where this would have led, for after the dancing the King died from eating his wedding cake, and she was forced to flee in an unmarked carriage to Wales, where a ship awaited to take her across the sea. 

Her prayers had been for naught: the King in the North, his mother, and most of their court had been murdered at a wedding as well. Sansa only wept for them, her true kin, all the long way to safety in the distant home of her aunt. 

- _two years later_ -

“Miss Stone.”

This could not be. He could not be there, in front of her, golden hand catching the candle light, solemn. She was Miss Alayne Stone, nobody and nothing, the ward of Sir Baelish who managed the Vale estate in a green, windy corner of Ireland. 

“Would you dance.” It was less a question than statement, as the band tuned for a waltz.

Lady Stark would have mourned to be excluded from the waltz; Miss Stone shrank into the shadowed wallpaper so none would chance to see her steps. To refuse this gilded visitor would damn her, a luxury she did not have. Sir Baelish would never allow her to be so rude, and he was so generous to his ward that she had no basis on which to assert herself. Surely Lord Westerland would not recognize her after so much time, with her dull brown hair and ill-fitting gown, the newfound economy of her body’s motion. The Crown wished Sansa Stark’s neck in a hangman’s noose, but Alayne Stone ranked too low for anyone to heed. 

So she nodded, placing her right hand into his left lightly enough she barely felt the pressure through her glove. He touched her no firmer than necessary, familiar golden hand on her back as they took their places. Through the fabric of her gown, she could pretend it was as much flesh as any other man’s. She thought of when she had flinched from that same hand as it went to brush away a bee, but he did not smell of horses now at all. Merely soap and cologne, a man freshly bathed after days of travel. 

Such propriety, the distance between them! She gazed over his shoulder as he guided her around the floor, using the momentum of a corner to pull her closer just a fraction. His eyes were laughing when she looked into them instead of at the couples around them, the attractive creasing at the corner of his eyes deepened by the passing of time. They mocked her, those sly reminders of mirth. 

Suddenly, she felt furious– at him, at her guardian, at the incessant salt wind which could never be escaped, at this being a waltz, and she could not enjoy it because of her partner. How small her life had become, how dull, how penned in by shadows, how safe, and here Lord Westerland had come, golden formality, a reminder of what had been. _He had sent no note before he arrived_. How dare he come unexpected to her now, when she no longer awoke most nights with dread, her family dead, and waltz with her like this. 

How dare he draw her closer and look upon her warmly as if they shared some secret joke. A turn, a step, and she attempted to create more distance. He did not allow it, using the momentum to bring them close enough for his legs to be lost in her skirts, and she looked upon him, impassive.

Lord Westerland leaned in, saying quietly, “I have crossed the winter sea for you. Do not deny me now.” His eyes were serious. 

“You do not know me, my lord. I am only an orphan.”

“Miss Stone, I recognize an honor and a _kinship_ in you.”

But her marriage had been ended by the supposed death of her prior husband. She was no one’s wife, no one’s kin. The last of her kind. The music ended and they paused on the edge of the dance floor, still holding each other, as she shook her head and replied, “I’ve heard from the stable boy Honor’s the name of your horse, so pardon my lack of flattery at such comparison.” She swallowed. “My Lord.” 

Lord Westerland blinked slowly at her, smile unwinding until he let loose one bark of laughter in the silence between them. Startled, Sansa pulled herself out of his grasp, staring at him. 

“A pleasure, Miss Stone. Would you accompany me to the balcony? I find I’m in need of fresh air after such an exhilarating exercise.” 

Again, she could not refuse, not with Sir Baelish’s stare burning into her back, so she took Westerland's arm and they left the crowded ballroom. When they were alone on the cold dark balcony, wind teasing her hair out of its braids and handsomely ruffling his own short style, he turned to her and said, plainly, “Lady Stark.”

No one had called her that in years. Sansa shook her head, panicked.

“You are mistaken, my Lord, and the walls of the Vale will hear you and know you speak false.” _Sir Baelish will find out, Sir Baelish knows everything, please, Jaime–_

“No, I– are you shivering? Here, allow me–“ The heavy weight of his jacket settled around her. There it was, the faint scent of horse. Something familiar to match what she knew of this man. His good hand smoothed down her right shoulder, lifted back to brush over a flushed cheek, raise her chin as he leaned over her. 

His lips were as warm as his coat, pressing gently into hers. When he parted from her, he bent to her ear in a perfect gesture of lover’s confidence. Her hands had found its way to rest upon his shoulders, the warmth of his lips and coat no match for the heat his skin radiating through the cloth. They were a tableau, an imitation of infatuation for the benefit of an audience which may not have existed.

“Sansa, I say again: I have crossed the winter sea for you. Please do not deny me or yourself.” A kiss to her temple. “Your mother sent me.” A kiss to her ear. “I have come to fetch you home, little wolf.”

-

So he did fetch her home, bodies in their wake which he had slain at her command, bodies she stepped over to place her hand in his. Lord Baelish would inherit no more in this world but a grave, eyes staring blankly at the Irish sky. Sansa had passed judgment on him in a court consisting of her, Lord Westerland and Westerland’s sword. The blade had struck cleanly through Baelish’s throat, a bastardized restaging of Eddard Stark’s death, but this time Sansa did not weep, nor did she smile. A nod, and the deed was done. 

She merely kicked a spray of dirt over the blood on the ground and asked Lord Westerland to get her to Scotland. Their driver pushed the horses to the limit at Jaime’s request, the animals’ coats steaming in the setting sun as they left the carriage to hurry onto a small postal ship headed across the sea. It was a rough crossing, both of them vomiting into separate buckets in their small cabin, Sansa vomiting as she stepped onto Scottish soil for the first time in years, out of joy and fear and the rolling motion of dry land. Lord Westerland helped her up, offered his own dirtied handkerchief to wipe her mouth after she spit the last of Ireland from her stomach onto Holyhead ground. 

“Wolves were not meant for sailing,” he murmured, a hand supporting her to stand.

She snapped back, “And neither were lions.”

At that, he laughed. It did not echo in the noisy docks, but it rang in her ears all the same as he guided her to a waiting hack, pulling her cloak’s deep hood over her head with his good hand to hide the way her roots shone penny-bright in the light. It was a way to travel yet; Westerland had enough coin to get them a private carriage, but she had to dye her hair again so as not to rouse suspicion as the supposed wife of a modest veteran of the wars. For all his notoriety as kingslayer, as emperor-killer, it was easy to dress in shabbier clothing, to speak less highly, to fool those far from London. At each inn they shared a room, wherein he chastely climbed into bed beside her. 

“If you think I’d stoop so low as to sleep on the ground again, dearling,” Westerland said, pausing to make a noise deep in his chest as he stretched out, a sarcastic tilt to his voice, “think again. I won’t touch you, unless you ask it.”

And the problem, Sansa found, was that she did wish to ask it. They traveled rough, or as rough as they could manage, so as not to attract notice, and in some cheaper inns the fires did not burn well enough through the night. Despite this, she never woke chilled, having curled into his heat, face sometimes pressed against the planes of his chest or the wave of his hair. Once she woke with his lips to the back of her neck, moving as if in prayer, but when she turned over he was still deeply asleep. None of this felt chaste, though she had been married to his brother and was thought to be soiled. For all the rings which had graced her finger– including the cheap plain band she wore now– she was still a virgin, waking with her body tense and unfulfilled, grasping at the sheets, understanding what she wanted but unable to take it. They had three days left of their journey, and she refused to disillusion herself as to what sharing a bed meant. _You are too old to tell yourself such stories. He is a marquess, and selfish, and has only fetched you home in promise to your mother_.

As Sansa stared sullenly out the window into the thick mist, frustrated, Westerland said, “I’m Casterly, now, you know. I’m sure the news reached you in that little wind-spit section of Ireland.”

“Then why did you not introduce yourself as such? I’m sure no one would object to a duke wanting to steal away a mousy little ward. Or a marquess, either. Lords may do what they wish, I thought. Your Grace.” The title, the deference, was glass-sharp in her mouth.

“But where’s the game in that?” Of course he’d say this as he would some other witticism. “Or the justice?” This, at least, was serious, his voice losing the jest. _I have crossed the winter sea for you_. Sansa clenched a fist in her skirts. 

“Do I call you Casterly, now, when we are alone?” In public she referred to him only as _husband._ He called her _dearling_ , and _love_. Sometimes it even sounded like he meant it. She continued to stare out the window, breath fogging the glass.

“I would prefer Jaime. Nobody has called me that for years, and gods know I could use a break in my routine.” 

“Does beheading noblemen so bore you that I should call you by your given name to be fresh?” At this she turned her eyes from the monotonous bleakness of the borderlands in winter. Westerland- Casterly, now- leaned against the seat at an odd angle, an attempt at comfort in a cramped carriage, cheek resting against his warm clenched fist.

“Why, Sansa, you of all people should know I’ve been _only_ a killer since I was fifteen. Everything I do is simply biding my time until I can happily disembowel the next mad bastard.”

“Jory wasn’t a mad bastard. He–”

“If you wish for me to say ‘sorry’, go elsewhere, dearling. I would do it all again.”

“As if I’d ever think you’d give such a bourgeois thing as apology, _Your Grace_.”

He cut out a short laugh before rapping on the carriage roof to halt so he could piss. Sansa used the reprieve to open up his seat, under which were extra blankets. She wrapped herself as best she could in the cramped space, wishing she had something with which to occupy her hands and thoughts. The closer they went to Winterfell, where her mother was supposed to be, as the landscape shifted to something she recognized deep in her bones, she wished to merely sleep the days away. 

When Casterly climbed back into the carriage, he leaned back into his corner, crossing his arms as he commented, “If you were cold, you could always ask me to warm you. Gods know you do so every night, and it’s no less scandalous if you’re sleeping or awake.”

So Sansa allowed him to join her, he opening his coat to tuck her securely against his chest, she covering them both with the blanket. They stretched out together along the seat, and his good hand coming up to run gently over her hair. The movement lulled her creeping frustration into a half-sleep, and Sansa murmured, “Have I said thank you, yet.”

He kissed the top of her head. “No, but I don’t think I’d want it. Simply don’t have your mother behead me once I’ve delivered you safely.”

The shirt smelled of stale sweat; still, Sansa rubbed her cheek against it slightly, eyes closed. “I would do it myself.”

Another kiss. The world was only them, his warmth, the rocking of the carriage. “For that I say ‘you’re welcome’. I only accept such a death when it comes at your hand.”

She was only able to get out, _Jaime_ , softly, before slipping into a nap she did not awaken from for at least an hour. With a tenderness none in public saw, Jaime Lannister, Duke of Casterly, lamed and furious, held close the daughter of one who he’d sworn traitorous loyalty to, and he unfortunately loved her.

-

Loch Geamhradh glittered under an unseasonably bright winter sun two days later, Winterfell itself sprawling wide and grey and impenetrable on the cliff beside the waters. Their hired carriage rolled from a beaten dirt road to, finally, gravel, Sansa growing paler as they drew closer. She had been silent since they’d awoken, her hand clutching his nightshirt and her face tucked into his neck.

“Dearling.” Jaime leaned forward, turned her to face him with a finger under that tightened jaw. “Little wolf.” That earned him the snap of her teeth on flesh, his hand jerking back and a curse on his lips, but a smile too. “They’ll recognize you, despite the hair.”

She frowned, not looking at him anymore but through the dust-clouded window to the road before them. Still no words, so Jaime entertained himself by imagining her not leaving him in the morning, but sighing, slipping up the hem of her nightgown, warm skin against his, sweating under the weight of the blankets as the sun shone. Or maybe he could slide before her now, sliding up the cotton of her plain dress past her knees and the simple stockings, and he’d damn well give her _something_ to say, he’d been too polite–

He jerked at the sudden slam of Sansa’s fist on the carriage roof, her scramble at the door, but he could not catch more than the breeze of her skirt as she leapt from the slowing vehicle. The scrape of gravel on her palms did little to stop her from pushing from the crouch she’d landed in, standing straight but not still; she shook as if in the throes of fever. 

“Arya?” The words were quiet, too quiet. “Arya!” This time Sansa shouted the name, before she started to run, what turned into a sprint, her skirts hiked up beyond her knees. The cool air whipped the tears on her cheeks, tears she was barely aware of until she crashed into her sister, who was no longer a skinny little thing but a proper adult. A proper adult whose body fit into hers, sinking down to the road in a tangle of limbs and startled cries. 

So thus it was, the reunion of sisters, of the scarred mother, of weeping and shaking and things the Duke of Lannister thought himself so much above, he did shudder in witnessing it. Lady Sansa became more vibrant than he’d ever seen her.

The Duchess of Stark invited the Duke of Lannister into her home, with promises of bread and salt, promises which men had previously proven false. The scars on the Duchess’ face, the scars across her throat were testament to that. So, then, the old ways were supplemented with steel, as Jaime did spy the glint of sharp daggers on the hips of loyal Scotsmen all around him. At the motion of his little rescue’s finger he could be gutted like a fish, like the man they’d called the Blackfish, the Duchesses’ uncle. Or so he’d been rumored to be gutted. The damned man himself sat down, laughing, across the table from Jaime, the smile on his lips a small joke between them. 

The cozy little fortress of Winterfell was warm as snow, the only hot place in the castle was the orangerie, where the heat and steam were carefully monitored for a wealth of fruit throughout even the harshest seasons. So the Duke wandered, often ending up amongst the unnatural trees and plants to look at the crisp frost beyond the windows. His mother had once taken her children to Italy, where it was warm and they’d spent afternoons playing in a blue tiled fountain. Then his father had visited, and his mother had become pregnant, and she had given birth to Lord Tyrion and died. No more fountains, no more sun on stone burning the soles of their delicate feet, simply the great, dank Casterly Keep, where the prior Duke kept his own zoo. It was not unusual to hear the aborted death shrieks of some goat or sheep as the starved lions and tigers ripped out their throats. Cersei had been endlessly fascinated with what bones the beasts had left picked clean, making her twin join her in her studies. 

Perhaps that is why men dying, corpses of friend and foe alike rotting on battlefields with a stench to make even the most hardened soldier vomit, never bothered General Westerland. A young General he was during the wars, driven by fury on the field and brutally specific in his technique. The rank and file would whisper: _don’t let Westerland find out you’ve touched a woman or a child who isn’t trying to fight us, he damn near killed Trant for his behavior at Badajoz and_ he’s _a lieutenant_.

Trant’s transgression and subsequent punishment had no consequence on his career, when he was brought up to the Kingsguard, using his position next to King Robert to sneer down at the Most Honorable Jaime Lannister. A pity, then, that in the first year of the reign of King Joffrey, when Lieutenant Trant was used as a bludgeon against Lady Stark, the man was found dead after a night of too much drink. Jaime flexed his left hand at the memory, gazing at the weirwood bursting in glorious red leaves above the treeline; his knife had been clumsy but, in the end, true. 

The murder of many men for the sake of empire was honorable. In the defense of a woman abused, merely criminal. So be it, and let the gods decide what to do with him when he made it to the judgment room. There were worse sins in the ledger of his life, if he gave a care about that sort of thing. The three children to whom he was never a father, regicide, joining the army in defiance of his father, weeping in the night over a lost hand, abandoning his sister when she wrote that she had need of him most– all blackened marks. A life of promises to god and crown and father, but it was one made to a mute duchess, her throat rendered useless by scars, which had driven him across the sea in the worst of winter. His life and his sacred honor in pursuit of a lost woman on nothing but rumor.

And what a woman he’d found! Even with her hair the color of turned dirt, in the darkened corner of the ballroom, his eye had been drawn to the stiff resolve of Lady Stark’s spine, the subtle tension of her jaw. She’d been furious with him and his attentions, and he had enjoyed it. Too many women and men sought him out, and too few let their disgust show. Cersei had possessed him completely, as he’d possessed her, their sins equal. General Oberyn Martell of the allied Spanish rebel army had been lust inflamed by the bonds of wartime, a connection tenable and temporary if only for the fact that they had each liked each other. 

Jaime did not think _how dare the lady scorn me_ , but _I have come for her as I did promise_. His impulse was to keep her safe, half-maimed as he was, as he’d done with eliminating Meryn Trant. For the summary execution of that man in a piss-soaked alleyway had been the culmination of seeing Lady Lannister flinch from his gloved hand in the garden, of the half-cocked determination to make right the one injustice he could recognize. 

So he did. He enacted Sansa’s justice upon Baelish with a sword’s edge, and took her across the sea, to home, blood in their wake. 

And he wanted her. She was a beautiful woman, harsh and shuttered; one night, as she’d adjusted the secondhand dressing gown in their cramped room, he’d caught a glimpse of a scar upon her shoulder as he’d reclined by the fire. The urge to kiss it surprised him as if slapped. It had been a long while since lust had come upon him.

He teased her and flirted in public rooms as if she was truly his wife so genuinely that innkeepers smiled fondly at the couple, thinking the wife’s downturned eyes and flushed cheeks a result of infatuation and modesty. If only those kindly proprietors knew how chaste the supposed marriage bed was, that the most intimacy was when he woke to her body curled into his. And if Jaime woke in the night, for he never slept through til morning, to pull his bedmate closer? Such things could happen in the sacrament of marriage. 

If only those proprietors knew how his supposedly docile wife had a tongue as sharp as vinegar in opposition to the honeyed insincerity of his tone. 

Here in Winterfell, where the beds were enclosed in velvet hangings and piled with furs, he now noticed the emptiness of his arms upon waking. He was a duke, with an estate famed for its wealth and in reality close to destitute and ruin; he could marry almost any woman in the isles or beyond, but he could still not rightfully possess the one he wanted. Not that the restored Lady Stark would ever be possessed again, not now that she was safely in the embrace of her ancestral home. He wanted her like a hunter wished for a trophy of the chase, proof of the stories, proof he was still the man he some days did not believe he had lost. 

So the Duke of Casterly paced the warmest place in the castle, unsure of if he would be able to return to Casterly Keep before the Empress Targaryen attempted to invade. He had never wanted the Keep before.

A lemon rolled to his feet, and he glanced over to see Sansa looking up at him, her hand opposite resting on the head of a great furry beast. It was supposed to be a dog, he’d been told, but looked more wolf than domesticated animal. Both had mud on them.

“It might do you good to join me on a walk one morning. Better than staying in here all day.”

“And submit a valet to the nightmare of my boots by stepping in an errant thawed patch?”

“As if you care for the sensibilities of your valet.”

“Can’t clean my boots myself, now can I?”

“Jaime. Walk with me tomorrow. I won’t even shove you into the loch.” It was the first time she’d called him by his name since they’d arrived two weeks prior, her tone commanding in a Scottish lilt. The accent had come through, sometimes, when she’d first woken, but her training as a lady had held fast once sleep had worn off. He liked her best in the morning. “Or perhaps I will, if you continue to whine as a child does at the thought of muddy boots.”

At that, Sansa leaned over, scooping some of the mud from her boots onto her fingers and pressing it in a line across his cheek. He barely flinched at the sharp cold, instead meeting her gaze directly. Her smile was almost imperceptible, her eyes almost warm.

“Meet me in the front hall at 9 tomorrow, _your Grace_. And damn your boots.” With that, she smeared the last of the mud against his lips before turning, stopped by his body moving in front of hers. The dog growled. Thrice-damned loyal beasts.

“You’re baiting a lion, little wolf.”

“Lion this, wolf that. Admit you’re a man, and all the flaws that come with it. I’ll even admit mine, if you wish.”

“And what flaws does the _Maiden-blessed_ daughter of the house of Stark think to have?” 

“I am furious, and sometimes a coward. I envy some for their bravery, and others for the fact they were dead before I was. I have lusted and cursed and lain in bed too crushed by the weight of life to care that I had not moved for days. I keep all of this inside because otherwise I–” She took in a breath, all quiet dignity, but did not stop. “I would have died. Yet I am nothing but a coward, pulled along by the whims of men and fate. My sister, she put a dagger between her teeth and fought her way home and yet I had to wait for _you_. You, who are supposed to be my enemy, was who I had to rely on because I was too terrified to grasp my own fate and now I am in my way indebted to you, and I hate both of us for it. Does that cover sufficient enough ground?”

“Perhaps not,” he murmured, stepping forward, crowding into her space. The dog snapped its teeth next to his left hand, but Sansa called off the animal with a motion of her own. He took advantage to dip his head, breathing in the scent of her hair as it lay braided in a crown. “I too have sinned. For I have wished death upon my father in exchange for freedom from your brother’s bondage. The most I fought back was with my tongue. Does that make me a coward? I betrayed that same father’s memory by pledging a kind of loyalty to your mother, but make no mistake, that loyalty was all for you. The daughter and sister of my enemy, who should be my own enemy. Oh yes, do not think I was happy to have to seek you. Perhaps I have also been pulled along by men and fate, to lead me across the winter sea. To you. Part of me wondered if you would have me tossed off those windy cliffs, and is the fact that I hesitated anything but cowardice?” He brushed the backs of his good fingers along her shoulder, the fabric warm from her skin.

“Yet you still executed Baelish for me without question.”

“Oh, I’ve executed many men for you.”

Her face tilted, curious. “How many?”

But she did not get an answer, for at that moment he kissed her, and then she bit his lip in turn, and he lifted her in his arms because yes, _yes_ , this was what it meant to fulfill the _want_ – warm skin and the taste of mud from his lips and hands pulling at his hair. To fulfill want was to be desperate, to understand the pleasure would not last, and it was essential to be greedy when partaking. So they stayed, taking their fill in the humid air, breaking apart only at the distant slam of a door. Sansa looked at him in horror, in satisfaction, a drop of sweat tracing its way down her face. Jaime leaned forward and licked it like the animal she said he was not, before rubbing his cheek down the side of her head so that his mouth was to her ear.

“Another flaw for us both, my lady: the depth of our desire.”


End file.
